


Interlude

by Phyllodendron



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Exes, F/M, Gratuitous Grocery Shopping, Marauders, Minor Remus Lupin/Original Female Character(s), Misunderstandings, Post-Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Post-Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:15:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 3,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25812670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phyllodendron/pseuds/Phyllodendron
Summary: It's the summer of 1994, and Sirius Black needs a place to hide.Vivian Murray hasn't seen Sirius in over a decade, but when Remus appears on her doorstep with an all-to-familiar dog in tow, will she find it within herself to let him back into her life?
Relationships: Sirius Black/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 35





	1. Chapter 1

_ July, 1993 _

_ The knock came shortly after midnight. Vivian Murray stirred within the cocoon of blankets on her sofa. She’d dozed off, despite herself. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t expected this particular visit.  _

_ Extricating herself from the cozy pile, she straightened her clothes and ran a hand through her hair. It always paid to look presentable when the Ministry came calling. She paused for a moment with her hand on the door knob, taking a deep breath. Then, she opened her front door.  _

_ It was unseasonably blustery for July, and a gust of wind blew past the three Aurors on her doorstep, past the dying ficus in her entry way, and into the sitting room, where it ruffled the pages of the evening edition of the  _ Daily Prophet _. “Escape from Azkaban!” screamed the headline, above the grimacing face of Sirius Black.  _

_ “Good evening, Miss Murray,” said Kingsley Shaklebolt with a pleasant smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “May we come in?” _

—

_ June, 1994 _

Vivian almost didn’t hear the knock over the scream of the tea kettle. She waved her wand absently to remove the kettle from the heat, almost throwing it across the room in surprise when the second knock interrupted the relative silence.  _ Of course _ , she thought.  _ Almost no visitors for more than a decade, but they always manage to arrive when I have my hands full.  _

“Coming,” she called, setting down the plate she’d been drying and running her wet hands over the towel draped over her shoulder. Sticking her wand into the back pocket of her jeans, she went to the door. Lord knew she’d put enough muggle repelling charms up to keep them off her doorstep, but it never hurt to keep one’s wand out of sight when answering the door. 

As soon as the door had swung open, she was smiling. “Remus!” She stepped into his arms, breathing deeply the familiar smell of chocolate and angora. “It’s so good to see you, it’s been ages.” 

She leaned back just far enough to look him over, letting her hands drape over his upper arms. “You look terrible. Rough monthly?” 

He looked sheepish. “Not my best.”

Vivian turned on her heel. “Come on in, then, I’ve just taken the kettle off, and I have some of those chocolate biscuits you like.”

Remus didn’t follow her gentle tug. When she turned back, he looked deathly serious.

“Viv, as lovely as that sounds, that’s not why I’m here.”

A few times in her life, Vivian Murray had felt something akin to a premonition. There was never enough clarity or advance notice to be of any use to her, and certainly not enough to be considered The Sight, but on a few notable occasions she’d felt a swirling sense of significance, as though something within her had noticed something important before her brain had fully come to the party. 

Now, seeing the look on Remus Lupin’s face, Viv was suddenly absolutely certain of what she’d see behind him on her doorstep. 

Her wand was flying out of her pocket and into Remus’ hand before she’d ever registered that she was reaching for it. He gripped both wands in one hand, holding his hands up with open palms. 

“Vivian,” he said, in the low soothing tones one would use with a frightened animal, “let me explain.”

He followed her as she backed into her home, and on the threshold she could see the skinny black dog she’d known would be there. He lay down with his head on his paws as if to make himself look less threatening. 

“Vivian,” Remus began.

“How could you?” There was so much bile in her voice she might not have recognized herself on a recording. “I trusted you. I lied for you. I let you…I let you  _ stay _ here, we...I  _ trusted _ you, Remus, and all this time you were helping  _ him. _ ” The backs of her legs hit the kitchen table. She gripped the edge. 

“Let me explain, Viv. I’ll give you back your wand when I’ve said my piece, and you can do whatever you want to us then. But let me explain.”

And she did. Remus explained, and Vivian gripped the table, and she thought by the time he’d finished the story her fingers might never straighten out again. He showed her the old photo from the  _ Prophet _ , showed her the too-familiar rat with the missing toe, and told her the story of Peter Pettigrew’s betrayal. And all the while, Sirius Black lay quietly in her open doorway, head on his paws and eyes on her face. 

Eventually, Remus made her a cup of tea. He bustled about her kitchen with the familiarity of a friend who’s long since earned the privilege of making his own tea. He sat her at the table and gave her two chocolate biscuits from the tin on the windowsill. And then he sat himself across from her and waited. 

The three of them sat in silence for several minutes, while Viv Murray let her world rebuild itself around a series of truths newly unearthed. When she finally spoke, it was almost a whisper. “He can’t stay here, Remus. They’ve already come looking — the night he escaped, and twice since. It’s not...I can’t hide him here long.”

“Just a few days, Viv.” And there was something in his voice that resembled pleading. “I need to go to London, get him a wand and things, ask some questions, see what’s going on. And he needs somewhere safe to be until I get back. Just a few days,” and he was reaching across the table to grasp her hand, “and then everything will be back to normal, I promise.”

She blinked and pulled her hand gently out from under his. “Nothing’s been normal for thirteen years, Remus.” She turned and looked at the dog still sitting in the open door. “Bathroom’s down the hall and to the left. There are extra towels in the hutch. I’ll find an extra pillow and make up a bed on the couch, unless you’d prefer to sleep by the fire.”

The dog snuffed and stood, stretching and giving a half-hearted wag of his tail before trotting off in the direction she’d indicated. 

She put her head in her hands. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

Remus patted her shoulder as he stood, taking her empty teacup to the sink. “Just a few days. They’re looking for a man, not a dog. Keep him out of sight and everything will be fine.” He moved toward the door, turning back to look at her as he grasped the handle. “Aren’t you glad, at least, that it wasn’t true?”

“Of course. Of course I am. Only…”

“Only now you have to figure out how you can live with the last twelve years.”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

Remus nodded. “Yes. Do tell me if you figure it out.” He smiled sadly at her, then left, closing the door gently behind him. 

And Vivian was left alone in her cottage with Sirius Black.


	2. Chapter 2

The silence of the water turning off was deafening. She had made herself another cup of tea after Remus left, after the dog had padded into her bathroom, after she’d placed a pillow and an old quilt on the sofa with hands that shook so much she thought for a horrible moment they might fall off. And then she’d made herself another cup of tea, because what else was there to do in this situation, really?

The sound of the shower in the background had been almost soporific. She’d let it wash over her, blocking out the thoughts that kept trying to bubble up into the front of her mind. And now it was gone, and that meant that only a few feet away, just past the refrigerator and the cabinet with the dodgy door she’d never bothered to fix, a very human, very alive, very not-in-Azkaban Sirius Black was stepping out of the shower. 

She wiped sweaty palms on her jeans, then put her hands back around the cup of tea on the table in front of her. What else was there to do in this situation, really?

The bathroom door always stuck. It had been hung slightly askew, and it was always worst after a hot shower. Sirius’ shower had been very long indeed. Vivian wondered when he’d last had the opportunity. 

She heard the slight whining pop as he forced the door open, the rustle of fabric in the hall behind her. And then Sirius Black was stepping into her kitchen.

She pointed to the cabinet beside the stove. He took down a mug and poured himself a cup of tea. And then he leaned back against the counter, and they looked at each other. 

It was strange to have deja vu seeing someone who’d never before been in that kitchen, who was holding a mug she’d acquired within the last few years, who was wearing a dressing gown that had almost certainly been a gift from her mother. It was pink and had an embroidered kitten poking out of the pocket. It was hideous. She loved it. 

He looked terrible. She heard herself say it before she registered that it might not be appropriate. Or necessary. 

“You look terrible.”

He snorted, taking a sip of tea. “Yeah.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t put me away, Vivian.” 

Vivian opened her mouth again and was horrified to feel a tear run down her face. She closed her mouth again, scrubbing at her cheek with the back of one hand. It didn’t help. 

“Shit,” he said, looking aghast, automatically reaching for his pockets and finding nothing but the embroidered kitten. And then she was laughing as well as crying, and he was laughing too, and she wasn’t sure either other them knew why. 

Sirius handed her a hand towel. She dabbed at her eyes obediently. 

“I’m sorry,” she said again, wringing the towel in her lap for something to do.

“Don’t be,” he said. “I don’t think I could bear it. Moony’s been telling me how sorry he is every five minutes. I don’t want that from either of you.”

She nodded, studying his face. He looked gaunt, with deep circles etched under his eyes. But the eyes were the same. Brown and piercing and very serious when he let them be, and laughing the rest of the time. He looked totally different, and exactly the same.

“Did you and Moony ever…” he trailed off. He sounded very young, suddenly. 

She nodded. “A few times. In the early eighties. We were lonely. But we’re better as friends.”

“Yes,” he said, a bit too quickly. “Moony was always a good friend.”

“Yes,” she said, because what else was there to say in this situation, really? “Sirius…”

“Didn’t expect you to wait around pining for me,” he said, still a bit too fast. “Would have understood if you’d…” He was studying the rug under the table.

“Everyone thought—“

“I know what everyone thought,” he snapped.

“Everyone thought we knew.”

He looked up at her again. “What?”

She spoke slowly, carefully navigating the lump in her throat. “Everyone thought we knew, Sirius. Everyone thought we knew what you were up to, that we could have stopped you.” The tears were back, and she gave up on the towel. “We were all we had left.”

He was frowning. “The Order?”

“Couldn’t wait to see the back of us. Molly Weasley said...some hurtful things.”

His gaze was fierce. “They shouldn’t have. She shouldn’t have. They should’ve known…”

“What else were they to think, Sirius? We all thought… Remus and I thought we must have been blind. How could we blame them for hating us when we already hated ourselves?” She took a deep breath, hating the way that it caught partway through in an awkward sob that reverberated through the quiet space. “And now we find out that all those years we spent being furious with you, you were rotting in prison for no reason. Can you let us be sorry, please?”

He watched her cry for a moment, then put his teacup on the counter. And then he was Padfoot, creeping across the kitchen floor to her as though he was afraid she’d kick him, gingerly laying his head in her lap. 

Vivian ran a shaking fingertip over his brow bone, looking down into worried brown eyes. And then she was sobbing in earnest, squeezing her eyes shut even when the soft fur under her hand became human hair, and two arms wrapped tightly around her lower legs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No Weasley-bashing intended! I adore Molly Weasley. But, sometimes when emotions are high we say things we don't mean. I'm sure she's very sorry for what she said to Viv, and would make it up to her if given the opportunity.


	3. Chapter 3

She wasn’t sure how long she’d been awake before the clatter. There was a spot of damp on the ceiling above her bed, and she’d watched it emerge from the darkness in the grey pre-dawn light. 

He was doing the dishes, she saw. The sound she’d heard must have been a mug slipping from his soapy hands back into the sink. He was still wearing her borrowed dressing gown. 

“Thanks for doing that,” she said. Her voice was slightly hoarse. She put the bundle she’d been holding on the table. “I found these.”

Sirius dried his hands before coming to investigate. He gingerly sorted through the pile. Gryffindor Quidditch jersey. A ratty Fleetwood Mac t-shirt. A pair of boxers covered in tiny dancing owls. A pair of sweatpants that had been repaired so many times she wasn’t sure they still had any of the original stitching. “These are all mine,” he whispered.

“Yes.”

“You kept them?” He ran the hem of the jersey between careful fingers, as though he was afraid it might disappear. 

“In a box under my bed. With some of the things you gave me.” He finally looked up at her, and Vivian felt the words flow out of her mouth before she could catch them. “The things I couldn’t bear to get rid of.”

“They smell like you.” 

She didn’t ask him how he knew that. His sense of smell had never quite returned to normal after he’d started turning into Padfoot, and she’d learned early on to stop wearing perfume when he’d transformed the night before. She shrugged. “I used to sleep in them, sometimes. When they still smelled like you. I was lonely.”

He put the jersey down and reached for her, and she let herself be drawn into his arms. She hated the feeling of his collarbone protruding under her cheek, but she pressed her face into his neck anyway. His hair, brushing against her face, smelled like her shampoo, but under that was the scent she’d known for nearly twenty years. 

He was gently stroking her back, rocking them ever so slightly back and forth. She might have stayed there forever, letting everything else fade away, except her stomach growled. 

She felt Sirius’ smile against the side of her head. “And I thought I was the half-starved one,” he murmured into her hair before loosening his grip to let her step free. “You have barely any food in this house. I thought I taught you better.”

She shot a glare back at him as she went to the cupboards. They were, in fact, quite sparse. “I’m not feeding a bottomless pit anymore. I don’t have to keep so much in the house, just in case you get hungry in the night and devour an entire roast.”

“That was one time,” he retorted. His smile lit up his whole face, and for a moment Vivian could have been looking at teenage Sirius again. 

She handed him a tin of beans. “I’ll get dressed and run to the shops.”

—

Crusty bread. Sliced ham. Bacon. Two dozen eggs. Four more tins of beans. A chicken for roasting, a packet of the orange marshmallows he’d always liked, a bottle of milk. He needs fattening up, she thought, sounding terrifyingly like her mother. 

A tin of dog treats. 

Charlene, the checker, cooed over the dog treats. “A stray,” she’d explained with a smile, “he’s started hanging around the house, and I like the company.”

“That’s lovely, dear,” Charlene said. “It’s good to have someone around.”

Yes. It is.

Vivian was almost overloaded on her walk back to the cottage. She lived outside of town, down a wooded path that she’d saturated in enough muggle-repelling charms to discourage visitors. She wasn’t sure when she’d last been so excited to come home. 

And then she rounded the bend and saw the Aurors on her doorstep.

The bag she dropped wasn’t the one with the milk and eggs. She thanked Kingsley Shacklebolt as he stopped to retrieve her beans from where they’d rolled away. “You startled me; I’m afraid I was off in my thoughts.”

“I hope they were pleasant,” he said with a smile as he handed her the brown paper packet of bacon. 

She tried to smile back. She’d always liked Shacklebolt well enough. He was polite, and always wiped his boots before coming in to search her house. 

“The past — so always some of both.” He nodded. He’d fought, too. He knew. It was probably why she liked him. “What can I do for you gentlemen?”

“The usual, Miss Murray. Have you heard anything from Sirius Black?”

She blinked up at him and hoped it was convincing. “No. Should I have?”

“He was in Ministry custody at Hogwarts a few days ago. He’s vanished.”

“Again?” She looked at the three men in front of her. “Well, he hasn’t come here. As I’ve told you, I bought this place in ‘86. He’s never been here. Even if he was looking for me, I don’t think he’d be able to find me.”

“Without help.” 

She turned a blank gaze to the Auror who’d spoken. “Well, yes. Without help.”

“Well,” Shacklebolt said with a sigh, “if he does turn up, you know where to find me.”

“If he does turn up,” she said mildly, “you can send the mortician to come collect what’s left when I’m through.”

The Auror nodded. “Can we help you with those groceries, Miss Murray?”

“No, I can handle them. Thank you.”

She watched them round the bend before she put down one bag to turn the key in the lock.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Marauders were hardcore Fleetwood Mac fans and nothing you say will convince me otherwise.


	4. Chapter 4

There was a black dog lying under the kitchen table. His ears perked up when she walked in. 

Vivian glanced around her. The clothes she’d left for him had been cleared off the table. Through the open doorway to the sitting room, there was no hint of the makeshift bed she’d made for him the night before. Sirius seemed to have had the sense to erase the evidence of his presence. Thankfully, since she evidently had not. 

She put the perishables in the fridge, then turned back to Sirius, proffering the dog biscuits in one hand and the marshmallows in the other. He transformed and took both from her, putting down the dog biscuits to tear open the packet of marshmallows. His moan was almost sexual.

“You handled that well,” he said when he’d finished half the bag. “Threatening to kill me was a nice touch.”

“I’ve usually meant it before.”

He grinned. “But not today?”

Vivian didn’t grin back. “Less today.” She turned and walked through to the sitting room, sinking into her usual place on the couch and bending almost in half to wrap her hands around the back of her neck. 

The cushion beside her sank. “Tell me.” And suddenly she was fifteen again, crying in the library under the weight of the OWLs and the war and everything else, and that beautiful Gryffindor boy that everyone was in love with was sitting next to her. Tell me, he’d said. And she had. 

“What if they’d searched the house?”

“Then they would have found a dog.” His hand was on her thigh.

“They know I don’t have a dog.”

“You would have convinced them.” He gently squeezed.

“But what if they’d figured it out?”

“They wouldn’t.”

She threw her hands down to look at him in disbelief. “But what if they did, Sirius? What if they’d taken you away and killed you and it was all my fault?”

“Viv.” His voice was soft. She realized suddenly that she’d almost been yelling. “None of it would have been your fault. None of it was your fault.”

She was crying again. God, she thought she’d cried herself out twelve years ago. “I can’t lose you again.”

He brought his hands up to either side of her face, brushing her cheeks with his thumbs. “I know, love.”

And then he was kissing her, and she was eighteen again, crying in Augustina Prewett’s kitchen after the Order meeting because Marlene McKinnon was missing, presumed dead, and Lily was pregnant, and James and Sirius were about to leave on a mission and she was so scared, more terrified than she’d ever been, and he was saying I know, love and kissing her right there at the kitchen table. 

It felt almost the same to kiss him now, just as it felt almost the same when she pulled the ratty Fleetwood Mac t-shirt over his head and let her hands trace up and down his bare ribs, now more prominent than ever but still somehow undeniably his. And it felt almost the same when he slid his arms around her, grazing his fingertips along the bare skin under her jumper until he found her breast. 

He had weighed more, back then, but it still felt almost the same when he leaned her back against the arm of the couch and kissed his way down her body. And even though it had been thirteen years, he still knew exactly how to touch her. His hair felt the same against her face as he came back to kiss her, the taste of her still on his lips, and the look in his eyes when he looked down at her was exactly what she’d remembered. 

And when he pressed into her and their bodies moved together in a long-forgotten rhythm, she could almost forget the Aurors on her doorstep and the dementors hunting his soul and the thirteen long years he’d been absent from her bed, because he was here and safe in her arms and their bodies were so familiar that they were sixteen again, making love for the first time on the shore of the Black Lake with moonlight outlining his back and cold grass against her skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the words of my beta, "[Dang], Sirius has the moves!"
> 
> Thanks for joining me on this weird little journey, friends!

**Author's Note:**

> This slight-AU slots in between the events of Prisoner of Azkaban and the letters Harry receives from the tropics in Goblet of Fire. Don't worry about Buckbeak; while I didn't think he'd fit into a small cottage in rural England, he's safely ensconced elsewhere and ready to enjoy some sun, sand, and surf with Sirius in just a few days.
> 
> Big thanks to my beta, Serena, who talked me off several anxiety ledges to get this baby on the World Wide Web. Comments appreciated, criticism welcome. 
> 
> Thank you for reading!


End file.
